New Music: Life in a Blender, “Tongue-Cut Sparrow”

The perpetually cranky Dave Lifton produces and co-hosts the Popdose Podcast and contributes an occasional column when he darn well feels like it. But mostly he eats Cheetos and yells at kids to get off his lawn, which is strange because he lives in an apartment. The guiding force behind LifStrong, he can be found on Twitter at @dslifton.

Life in a Blender, the absurdist New York band fronted by Don Ralph since 1987, are getting set to release their ninth studio album, “We Already Have Birds that Sing,” which will be available on April 13. You can stream the first single, “Tongue-Cut Sparrow,” below.

The song was inspired by a real-life story by Mitsu Sundvall. Apparently her cousin was a burlesque dancer in 1950s San Francisco. As the lyrics say, “She’s adored by all the men / Even Sinatra says he’s a friend / Most of her family don’t understand / But grandma’s in the audience giving her a hand.” Ralph recognized some similarities between her career path and the one he has chosen. “Despite being told repeatedly by family and others not to pursue a career in burlesque, Mitsu’s cousin found her creative voice in boozy theaters filled with music and questionable behaviors. Her story parallels Life in a Blender’s exactly, except we wear smaller tassels,” he deadpans.

“We Already Have Birds that Sing” is the follow-up to 2011’s “Homewrecker Spoon.” Our own Dw. Dunphy praised its eclectic and unpredictable nature, comparing it favorably to Talking Heads and Modest Mouse and saying, “You have at any given moment a horn section, banjo and mandolin, violin/viola/cello, and a nicely skewed musical perception throwing them into the figurative blender (pun intended) with the guitar/drum/bass standard.” Ralph also wrote about one of the songs from that album, “Sean Connery,” for us a few months later..

You can pre-order the seven-song album — $7 for digital and $10 for the CD, both of which come with an immediate download of “Tongue-Cut Sparrow” — from their website.